


Dear Petunia,

by crownedSerpent09



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Gen, Marauders' Era, first wizarding war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-23
Updated: 2016-11-23
Packaged: 2018-09-01 18:15:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8633257
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crownedSerpent09/pseuds/crownedSerpent09
Summary: It was her nephew’s birthday. His first birthday, in fact, and Lily had not been invited.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Part of a larger work that I will maybe finish someday.

**23 June 1981**

**18:48**

**Godric’s Hollow**

It was a known fact that Lily and James Potter were family people. They both grew up with loving parents and friends whose bonds ran as deep as blood. So when Lily set into her bubble bath on a Tuesday night with a comfortable tub of Death by Chocolate Ice Cream and her favorite stainless steel spoon, ready to compose a letter, she wondered why her sister did not fit into the endeared mold of “family” she was “people” with.

It was her nephew’s birthday. His first birthday, in fact, and Lily had not been invited.

It was a commonly known fact that Lily and James Potter loved each other very much. They were high school sweethearts, and although they weren’t a power couple like Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, it wasn’t unusual for them to be dubbed “soul mates.” (Personally, Lily liked the term “sweethearts” better --- the implication of something sacrosanct and naive, of a honeymoon phase that still hasn’t gone.) Petunia and Vernon Dursley were a set too; the enormity or lack thereof of their love was unimportant as they were interminably like-minded and tolerant of one another. Someone had to be. There: the bitter tone that Lily’s thoughts often took on when recollections of her sibling emerged. She reminded herself of the bubbles around her, the taste of cold chocolate, and the ambient candlelight. This was the time to be sweet to Petunia, she thought. There was no room to be bitter about family at a time like this. Regrettably, that switched her focus to the reason she was writing, beyond common courtesy. She began to feel resentment toward something else altogether.

The chocolate was milky on her tongue, just the way she liked it. James prefered dark chocolate, especially in ice cream, and Sirius avoided chocolate altogether. Remus ate it when he was nervous or stressed, and Peter snuffed it down much like every other sweet.

It should be strange, how much she cared about her husband’s friends; the world in which she had come from taught her such. Not in the world that became home, however. Here, the friends _were_ blood, and family meant more than the people you spent the holidays with. Her sister didn’t understand that. Lily didn’t even know her son’s _name_.

 

Dear Petunia,

I heard that your son is turning 1 today. How exciting! You must give may felicitations to him and to Vernon as well.

 

It was just short of simultaneously over-excited and snooty. Lily discarded it in the fire. (A fire in her very own bathroom! She began to see why the purebloods thought themselves so above everyone else.) Carefully circumnavigating the frothy depths below, Lily brought another chemical-whitened paper to the magically resistant rack resting on the edges of the bathtub. Maybe this one will be saved from the fate of burning in her bathroom’s crimson fire.

 

Dearest sister,

My nephew is 1 today! No doubt he is on his way to become one of the best men the world will ever see, just like

 

Too simpering. It was tossed.

 

Petunia,

I know we haven’t spoken in quite a well, and I deeply regret this decision on both of our parts. Your son’s birthday will not go ignored however, and I wish him

 

Too accusatory, and starting off problematic. Into the flames it went.

Too long of a time later, Lily had resorted to ripping off strips of affected paper and starting over on the same page, as to minimize waste. It wasn’t until she was thoroughly frustrated and disgusted with herself that she discarded the paper altogether and grabbed a piece of parchment from the her ready pile and poured her heart out.

 

Dear Petunia,

It has been too long. I say that because I mean it, even if you think I’m being cliché. We haven’t spoken in years, and that has got to change. I will not take “no” for an answer, a skill I learned from my “no good freak of a husband” as you say. We are going to make up because I can’t stand dying without knowing you’ve forgiven me.

You may think I am being melodramatic. Perhaps I am. After all, Dumbledore is the most powerful wizard in the world, and the Fidelius Charm is one of the most complicated and potent spells out there.

But we are at war. I’m sure you must have seen the signs. Immovable fogs of despair and villages attacked out of nowhere; surely you must have seen the news. Watching the news is one of the things normal people do, and I say that because I do know how much you love to be normal. And it doesn’t have to change Tuney; I know you don’t like magic, and you don’t like people like me, but we’re family. We are family and my son will be turning 1 year old five weeks after your son and I cannot live in fear _and_ worry all at once. It is too much, even if I must be strong and fight: for James, for Harry, for myself. We are at war and my husband, my son, and I are in hiding because a madman is out there, and he wants to kill my baby. Sirius and Remus and Peter and Marlene are around and they fight in the place of us and offer support, but they are not you. They are not my sister. So here I say it: I’m sorry. I am sorry for whatever I may have done wrong to make you hate me so, and I am sorry for all the reasons you have felt hurt because of me. I’m sorry, and I need you Tuney. You’re my only fam

 

She stopped there. James chose that moment to knock on the door to tell her that an owl had come and that Dorcas Meadowes was dead.

 

**24 June 1981**

**8:22**

**Little Whinging**

Dudley was coughing up his creamed carrots again. Apparently, turning 1 year old did not improve his maturity in the slightest, and he was still the squalling, squealing baby Petunia and Vernon had spoiled him to be.

Petunia was still picking up the streamers and paper decorations left from Dudley’s birthday party, which had been a disheveled and noisy affair in which the children guests screamed and ran around their parents’ legs and the adult guests cooed over Dudley, who spat in their face. Petunia pinched a sticky streamer off the tabletop with a wrinkled nose and glared disapprovingly at the smears of cake on her formerly spotless wallpaper. Her Diddykins will never be this messy, she decided.

Vernon was gone, off to make up the work he missed yesterday in favor of paying special attention to Dudley, so he wasn’t there to scream and rage over the owl that landed on their kitchen window a second later, but Petunia was. Her shriek was cut short when her brain processed just _why_ the bird could be there and from _whom_ it was sent.

She gingerly detached the roll of parchment from the owl’s leg and shooed it away angrily when it tried to peck for food. Dudley made a loud gurgling sound and threw his bowl at it, missing spectacularly when gravity pulled it down to the middle of the kitchen floor, barely half the distance to the window. For once, Petunia wasn’t bothered by the tumult.

She examined the letter. The envelope was not written in her sister’s hand; rather, it was written in a faintly distinguishable scrawl that indicated it had been sent in a hurry. The contents inside were in a better shape, though Petunia noticed that Lily had not bothered to sign the letter or even finish it. Skimming over the lines, she had a sudden, alarming notion that perhaps her sister was ---

No, no the others of her kind would have written her about it with Lily’s letter, she decided. Her sister must have been called away urgently on some … war business. She suppressed a shudder and slid the parchment into a kitchen drawer, intending to forget about it until she had time to herself.


End file.
